Hume und Kant. Interpretation und Diskussion (review)

~OOK REVIEWS 375 Search after Truth Malebranche uses relativity arguments to establish that we do not see the qualities of things themselves (a conclusion closely connected, in Berkeley's mind at least, to the claim that we immediately perceive only our own ideas), and Malebranche applies the arguments first, and with the most lavish attention, to the perception of primary qualities. Once we recognize the use to which Berkeley puts relativity, and appreciate the possibility of a Malebranchean inspiration, we will be less likely to accuse him of misunderstanding Locke. Turbayne's anthology contains twenty essays in all, covering nearly every topic of concern to Berkeley. It is essential reading for philosophers and historians working on Berkeley and British empiricism. The volume includes a bibliography for 196379 with over 4oo entries, and a useful analytical index. There are numerous typographical errors, but aside from the missing page they are not serious. KENNETH P. WINKLER WellesleyCollege W. Farr, ed. Hume und Kant. Interpretation und Diskussion. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg und Mi~nchen, a982. Pp. 255. DM. 29,8o. The editor of this anthology, Wolfgang Farr, presents us with selections from works of H. Cohen, E. Cassirer, A. Riehl, R. H6nigswald, E. Husserl, and W. Stegmiiller and with essays by L. W. Beck, J. G. Murphy, M. E. Williams, R. A. Mall and Hg. Hoppe. A preface by G. Funke, an introduction by the editor, and a selected bibliography round off the volume. G. Funke stresses an underlying unity between Hume and Kant; both are concerned with an analysis of human nature and with possibilities (of action and of cognition) somehow inherent in such a nature. But differences arise between them even on this level. Hume attempts to reach genetic results whereas Kant searches for logical conditions. Funke interprets Hume as attempting to clarify a feeling of necessity (compulsion) and as remaining unable to reject skeptical conclusions since he holds that no existence can be demonstrated. Kant, on the other hand, reaches for synthetic a priori conditions of a perceiving, cognizing consciousness. In his introduction W. Farr stresses Hume's empiricist position with an accompanying insistence that methods of science and of experience be introduced into philosophy . He attempts to distinguish between Hume's psychological and Kant's transcendental subjectivism and concludes, like Funke, that on the strength of Humean psychologism skepticism is unavoidable. Kant, in contrast, is said to argue towards a non-psychological necessity of principles, such as that of causality, since he is analyzing the structure of consciousness rather than giving an empirical account of specifically human nature. Knowledge to be achieved by Kantian methods is knowledge of and by reason. With such a distinction between Hume and Kant, Farr joins the debate concerning the nature of transcendental philosophy, including the problem of its relation to psychology in general and to cognitive psychology in particular. In the 376 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 22" 3 JULY ~984 rest of his introduction, Farr provides the reader with helpful historical and biographical data concerning his authors. H. Cohen is represented by a short excerpt from his Kants Theor~ der Erfahrung. He stresses that Kant is arguing towards the conditions of Newtonian science, i.e., of scientific experience beginning with Newtonian premises. In contrast, Hume is said to be departing from a Newtonian conception of forceand simply not to "understand " Newton's method. According to E. Cassirer (in the second volume of his Das Erkenntnisproblem), Hume and Kant share the belief that causal connections are not of the nature of a logical consequence-relation. Knowledge of (instances of) such connections therefore requires conditions of experience. But, as was to be expected, Hume and Kant disagree as to the nature of experience. Hume is said to remain on the level of association of ideas whereas Kant's view sees inductive and mathematical principles as integral parts of any experience. In two excerpts from the first volume of his justly famous Geschichtedesphilosophischen Kritizismus, Alois Riehl stresses the fundamental Kantian insight that a schematized concept of causation is indispensable for experience in that temporal succession (and duration) can be determined only in appearances and by means of the causal principle. Causation is an a...